I blinked, and the month of September sped by! Next Thursday is October 1, which, I’ve just learned, is not only International Coffee Day, International Day of Old Persons, and World Vegetarian Day (all of which have some special significance for one or more members of my family), but also—and most important of all—National Black Dog Day!
The Greenwood Board of Selectmen, which usually meets on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 5 p.m., will be altering their meeting schedule for the next few months. The board will meet next on September 29, then will meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays in October (the 13th and 27th), November (the 10th and 24th), and December (the 8th and 22nd).
The last few days of September and all of October are jam-packed with events! Here are some that I know about—be sure to let me know of others I may have missed.
Friday, September 25, from 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. at West Bethel Makerspace, 10 Ferry Road, Bethel: Community Mending Group monthly meeting. Feature Focus: All Things Adhesive with Susan Barras. Susan will cover the basics of how adhesives work, the range of options when choosing an adhesive, and tips for getting the best adherence. Join us drop-in style. The Makerspace team has created a fantastic working environment, and they look forward to making new connections that support our community. As always, rally up a friend, and bring your own project (it doesn’t need to be the Feature Focus) along with some donation money so our group can continue to grow and thrive.
Tuesday, September 29, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the Telstar High School Library: To Your Health presents “A Guide to Healthy Living” with Dr. Kevin Finley of the Bethel Family Health Center. This event is FREE and open to all ages. Students and families are encouraged to attend. To Your Health is in its 21st year of providing free health wellness programs to the greater Bethel and Western Maine communities.
Sunday, October 4, at 2:00 p.m.: Cemetery Tour of Woodland Cemetery, Route 5, Bethel. Kick off “Spooky Season” with the first of four October Sunday afternoon cemetery tours! Every Sunday in October, join Museums of the Bethel Historical Society Executive Director Will Chapman at one of Bethel’s historic cemeteries to learn about some of the town’s permanent residents. In keeping with the Independence 250 theme, special attention will be given to Revolutionary War veterans. First up is Woodland Cemetery, a beautiful tiered cemetery located on Route 5 (Songo Pond Road), just about a mile south of Bethel village. The rest of the cemeteries on the tour are Riverside (North Road) on October 11; Pine Grove (West Bethel) on October 18; and Middle Intervale Cemetery on October 25.
Sunday, October 4, at 5:00 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Robinson House at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society (10 Broad Street): “The Painter’s Fire,” a special Independence 250 talk by Zara Anishanslin, Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists armed with paint, canvas, and wax played an integral role in forging revolutionary ideals. In her 2025 book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution, Zara Anishanslin charts the intertwined lives of three such figures who dared to defy the British monarchy: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. From London to Boston, from Jamaica to Paris, from Bath to Philadelphia, these largely forgotten patriots boldly risked their reputations and their lives to declare independence.
Monday, October 12, at 9:00 a.m.: Geology hike at Buck’s Ledge Community Forest with Myles Felch. Meet at the Route 26 trailhead parking lot.
Wednesday, October 14, at 4:00 p.m. at the Bethel Library (6 Broad Street): “Ghosts of Mount Washington,” a presentation by author Marianne O’Connor. She will discuss the memorials on Mount Washington. Several of these memorials are associated with mysterious events, and there are a total of eight, each representing a tragic story of immense loss.
Saturday, October 17, at 2:00 p.m. in the Howe Exhibit Hall of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society (Mason House, 14 Broad Street): “What Revolution?” Just how revolutionary was the American Revolution? Two historians, David Jones and William Andrews, will take up this question in a spirited discussion of the events of 1776 and their place in history. If you know William from his popular Western Mountains Senior College courses or David from his Bethel Village walking tours, you’ll know that both men are deeply passionate and wide-ranging in their knowledge of American history. This is sure to be one for the history books!
Friday, October 23, from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday, October 24, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Gould Academy fieldhouse: 46th Annual Bethel Outing Club Ski and Snowboard Sale. Get that unused gear ready to sell! As well as the opportunity to buy from multiple shops in the same place, you have the opportunity to sell winter/outdoor gear and clothing you no longer use or have outgrown (gear should be in safe and good condition). The club takes a 20% commission on sales. More information can be found at bethelouting.org
Saturday, October 31, from 5 to 7 p.m.: Trick-or-Treat Broad Street. Round out a busy month with some family fun! Be sure to stop by the Bethel Library and the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society for our fifth annual Trick-or-Treat Broad Street. We will be distributing candy to trick-or-treaters at the Bethel Library, Robinson House, and Mason House. We’ll also have a mini haunted house full of creeptastic historical oddities in the Twitchell Education Center!
And here’s one upcoming event for November, which will be upon us before we know it:
Thursday, November 5, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Telstar Library: Mary Morton Cowan will give a presentation on the history of logging in New England. She is the author of Timberrr! A History of Logging in New England, written for middle-grade readers. Spanning four centuries, the book explores the true story of how logging shaped the economy, culture, and forests of New England—from colonial mast cutting to the rise of sawmills and modern sustainable forestry. This program is presented by the Western Mountains Senior College, and is free and open to the public.
Although I was sorry to miss all the Harvest Fest goings-on last Saturday, I spent a wonderful weekend in Milford, Connecticut, where I grew up. On Friday morning, I drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where my best friend (of 61 years!), Donna, lives. After half a century spent almost entirely in Oxford County, my highway and traffic driving skills have become pretty rusty, and I’ve vowed, if at all possible, not to drive any further south than Portsmouth, so I was glad to ride with Donna the rest of the way. Her parents still live in Milford, in the same house where she grew up, so she travels that way fairly often and is a much more intrepid driver than I am.
After we got settled in our perfect little Airbnb overlooking the Gulf Pond estuary, where we could watch egrets and other wading birds from the sunroom, we went to visit Donna’s parents and went out to dinner with them at their favorite Italian restaurant, Mama Teresa’s.
Before we went to dinner, Donna’s mother, Marie, took us across the street to meet a family from Iran who have become her dear friends. She first met them two years ago, when she learned that their daughter, Nila, would be going to kindergarten the next fall and had not yet learned to speak English.
Marie (who is 93) had worked in a preschool for many years; she decided she would become Nila’s tutor, and began teaching her English lessons twice a week. Nila learned quickly, and was soon not only speaking, but also reading and writing English. Now in first grade, she is able to act as a translator for her grandparents, who live with the family and speak Persian. Her grandmother, Tahi, picked up some English from Marie’s lessons with Nila, and she recently decided to enroll in ESL classes, to which Marie now accompanies her.
Tahi, who adores Marie, often brings traditional Iranian foods she makes across the street to share with her and Donna’s father, and Marie held a birthday party for Nila last month when she turned six. It is so heartwarming to see the love and respect that has developed between these two families from very different backgrounds. But Nila’s family still has many friends and relatives in Iran and, sadly, when I told Donna this morning that now, whenever I hear news about the war in Iran, I keep thinking about the family and wondering how they feel about their adopted country and the current administration, she replied, “I think they’re afraid all the time.”
On Saturday, Donna and I attended our high school class’s 50th reunion, the first one I have been to. We were fortunate to have perfect weather, and we had a wonderful time reconnecting with the 80 or so members of our class of 300 who attended. When we were in school, our town had three high schools and 17 elementary schools. My own elementary school, West Main, was well represented at our reunion.
Then it was off to visit our friend Maria for a couple of hours at her farm, which was started by her grandparents in 1942; her grandsons, Oskie and Auggie, are the fifth generation of her family to live and work on the farm.
Before we headed north on Sunday, we stopped in Branford for a visit with my brother Andy and sister-in-law Marleen. I can’t believe it had been almost two years since I had seen them!
Being away for three days meant I didn’t make any progress at all last weekend on my attempt to settle back in at home and Organize All The Things, and from the looks of my October calendar, I’m going to have to settle for little snippets of time here and there when I can tackle small projects, rather than the unbroken stretch of project time I’ve been dreaming of. Oh, well…the important stuff will get done eventually, and as for the rest, I’ll try to remember something Tony told me early in our relationship: “Some things get done by not being done.”
This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.
Where crooknecks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on the vines...
~John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Pumpkin”
National Black Dog Day?! Love it. Go, Lena.